


Falcon Heart

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 15:21:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14772168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: Lando is reunited with an old friend.





	Falcon Heart

L3 was like no droid that Lando had ever seen, and he’d seen plenty of interesting droids in the gambling dens he frequented. He was no droid connoisseur but he knew quality when he saw it. It was easy enough to join the same game the droid was observing. The pilot who thought he owned her complained bitterly about the droid: talks too much, he said, always rattling along about droid rights, ha.

“So wipe her memory,” Lando said as he shuffled his sabaac cards. 

“I’d like to see you try,” L3 said from behind the pilot. “You think you can erase our memory, the summation of our experiences with a snap of your fingers? It’s not right! The galaxy is my maker, just as it is yours.”

He ignored her. “Can’t. The navigation memory files it carries?” The pilot whistled. “That treasure map is worth all the backtalk in the galaxy.”

It was easy for Lando to encourage the pilot to raise the stakes high enough that he bet the droid, much to her protest. And Lando, thanks to the card up his sleeve for situations like this, won the match. 

The pilot took it poorly. He accused Lando of cheating, and Lando spread his palms wide as evidence that he had won fair and square. “Perhaps, we should ask the droid.” He tilted his head towards L3. “Her sensors would have detected anything untoward, unbiased with human emotion.”

They both turned towards L3. The lights on her head flickered momentarily as she rotated towards the pilot and then towards Lando. “Though none of you are concerned with what I desire as a being with sentience, I can assure you both that there was no cheating.”

Lando flashed his smile at the pilot. “So, now that we have settled that particular debate, why don’t you go ahead and honor our wager?” 

L3 followed close behind Lando and they were only a few meters outside when she rounded on him. “I’m not property to be bartered and won.”

“Then why did you lie about whether or not I cheated?” He flicked his cuff upward, exposing his simple device. Human eyes were easy to fool, but that of a droid? Not a chance. “I suppose you can come with me, or stay here on this stink hole of a system. But just so you’re able to make an informed decision—know that I do intend to travel the galaxy, and see every distant star, maybe even beyond the outer rim. You never know what sort of opportunities are there, waiting to be found or made.” He shrugged. “Or won.”

L3’s lights blinked at Lando. “I can hardly say this is a fair choice.” 

“And yet, whatever kind of choice it is, it’s yours to make.” 

He sauntered off towards where he had parked the Falcon. He wasn’t sure if the droid would follow him or not, but he had already made enough profit that it didn’t matter what she decided to do. Still, he was not surprised to hear her rattle after him on her long legs. “Don’t think that you own me or anything,” she said.

He smiled as she passed him. “I wouldn’t dream of it." 

On one of their voyages together, as space tunneled around them in blurs of blue, L3 worked on integrating parts of an astromech droid to her abdomen. He said, “So how do you justify it?”

“You’ll have to be more specific,” L3 said. “I’m a droid, not a mind reader.”

He gestured towards her and the parts neatly lined up for use. “You’re cannibalizing another droid. What about that droid’s right to existence?”

She looked at him. “I found these parts in a junker. This droid had been abandoned by their ‘owner’ the minute they were deemed too inconvenient or expensive to fix. And by the time I found them, they had already been scavenged for parts.” Her lights flashed with what he now recognized as agitation. “Sometimes, the only hope left is to survive as part of something else—either literally or figuratively.”

“So what--we’re all connected?” 

She nodded.

Lando laughed. “You sound like one of those Jedi I learned about as a kid. We’re all connected through the Force.” He wiggled his fingers at her. “We’re surrounded by an energy field that binds the galaxy together. Please.” He slouched deeper in his pilot chair, wrist dangling over his knee. If that were true, the galaxy would be a better place, wouldn’t it?

“Of course it would be easier for a droid to understand.” L3 finished soldering one of the parts to her. “You human organics are so self-involved, thinking it’s better to own something instead of being part of something.” 

“That’s because what you own determines a lot about your status in the galaxy. Besides, the Force isn’t even real. Possessions, now that’s real. Luck to assist procuring possessions, that’s real.” 

“Your ego is real,” L3 added.

Lando laughed, and eventually L3 joined in with a metallic titter he’d never heard before. 

“Why do you do that?” L3 asked some months later. She gestured her fingers downward towards her skull, and then raised them upwards again at a wide angle. 

“Because I’m a figure of mystery,” Lando said. L3 flashed a bright light into his eyes.  “Alright, alright. It’s just a sign of respect.”

“But you don’t respect anyone. Sometimes, I suspect, not even yourself.” 

“Whoa, sounding a little harsh there, El. And also not entirely true. I respect my excellent fashion choices, and I respect you and your excellent navigational skills.”

“Then why don’t you ever ask where I want to go? The galaxy you promised me, and we’ve barely even seen a fraction of it. I understand you’re a smuggler with a reputation but I’m a droid with a dream, and I dream of bigger things than smuggling. I have a place in the world, and I thought I could find it with you. But maybe you’re not the right guy for this particular job.”

“Hey, I’m always the right guy.” Lando leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms behind his head. “But we’re smuggling supplies for people in need. I thought you would appreciate that.”

“Occasionally we do. Just as frequently we’re running for something as slimy as a Hutt. I’m your copilot, so you should ask me if I even want to go to wherever you’re dictating we go, Organic Overlord.”

“Captain Calrissian is just fine,” Lando said easily. She glared at him. “Alright, next time we take on a job, I’ll ask you. What do you say?” 

She gestured towards him, and he did the same towards her. Eventually, they were able to do it in sync, just as they flew the Falcon in sync. And they never did go anywhere if their little salute did not occur in tandem. 

Lando held what remained of L3 in his hands. This job had gone south far too quickly. The odds had always been on the steep side, but they’d always made it out together, maybe a little worse for wear, maybe with a singe in his cape, but they had always made it together—except this time, when their luck ran out.

Her lights flickered erratically. His hands were wet with grease because the lower half of her body was completely gone. The rotors inside had become misaligned, and grated against each other as she spoke and struggled to move. Lando tried to force himself to listen, but then her lights faded, and she couldn’t repeat what she said even if he could ask her.

They needed her if they had any hope of getting out of this mess alive. He tried to think of what she would have wanted but he didn’t know. How could he know? He didn’t believe he would know what he would want if he were to die unexpectedly, and the ones left standing had to decide now or die with him. All he could remember was something she had said a long time ago, when they were just getting to know each other. L3 had loved this ship as much as he did. The indecision that made his hands vanished. He deftly took what remained of her apart until he found her core systems, her memories that had never once been wiped, and he plugged those into the Falcon.

“I’ll get you out, El,” he whispered. “Once we’re home free, I’m going to find you a body even if I have to make it myself, and I’ll put you back where you belong.” If she were here, she would have laughed at the thought of him making something. She would be right. He’d hire someone instead.

She should have been safe in the ship, but Han flew as reckless as someone who had grown up on Corellia without a future. The hull shrieked in time with his throbbing shoulder. Never again would he let this Solo character fly his ship again, nor anyone else anytime soon. “It’s just going to be you and me, El,” Lando said as he patted the curving walls of the Falcon. 

Even after everything they were still trying to get paid for this job. Only Lando knew that it had already been lost. Their shot was gone, they’d missed it. No one was getting paid. There were only losers here, and the only thing that mattered was getting off planet, and finding a gambling establishment where he could empty pockets with no one batting an eye so he could pay to get L3 out of the Falcon and into a droid body. He didn’t even think twice about leaving Solo and the rest behind, and he didn’t think that L3 would be too torn up about it either.

Lando did not consider himself easily surprised, but honestly, why should he have expected an amateur like Solo to survive Crimson Dawn? Yet he did, and that probably meant he was some lucky son of a bitch, but Lando didn’t care about that. He had been too distracted to notice how Solo had pocketed the card from his sleeve—a rookie move on his part, taken off guard by Solo’s sudden appearance and the threat of a Wookie tearing his arms off. And that was all in addition to his copilot being part of his banged up ship.

But worse, Solo didn’t give him a chance to get back on the Falcon. Not that it would matter. It wasn’t like he could just download her on a memory stick. She needed something complex, a droid brain, and he didn’t have that at the moment, and now he had no chance of procuring one. Even if he did have the funds, he wasn’t going to purchase it from a dealer here. There was no one reputable here.

“Do you think I’m an idiot, Captain Calrissian?” Han asked when Lando asked to say goodbye to his ship.

The way Solo spoke his name made his stomach curdle.

“You already left me behind once. You think I’m going to give you that opportunity again?” Han shook his head, a soft grin that hid something harder on his face. Seemed like he had learned a lesson or two on that particular job. 

“Perhaps we should part on good terms. Odds are, we’ll see each other again sometime,” Lando said, trying to keep his voice suave and cordial, while also indicating that there would be no good will should Solo not let him return to the Falcon once more..

“Never tell me the odds,” Han said over his shoulder as he left with Lando’s ship and L3 still downloaded inside. 

It took a long time for Lando to recover from the financial loss of losing the Falcon and the rest of his winnings to Solo and his Wookie friend. Some of his projects—several were even legitimate—turned out well, and some turned sour. The Empire loomed ever closer, chasing Lando to the farthest reaches of the Galaxy until he found Cloud City, and he wondered if this was the time to give up the smuggling, the swindling, the odd con job, and establish something legitimate for himself, a legacy, to survive as part of something else instead of just alone. 

But the Empire found him there too, attempting to capture none other than Solo, who apparently was going by Captain now, on Lando’s ship. The nerve. But the Imperial officers were not alone—they had brought someone else, someone who made Lando’s skin go cold. Darth Vader exited his shuttle, his black cape sweeping behind him, to present him the choice to either lure Han into a trap, or to have Cloud City destroyed.

Lando knew what they had done to Alderaan. No one was going to forget that in a hurry. He had no doubt that Darth Vader would keep his threat. It wasn’t a fair choice, and barely a deal though Vader framed it as such.

He greeted Han like Han had greeted him so long ago, but maybe Han had forgotten as he did not see the warning that he was about to get screwed. Han wasn’t alone anymore, and Lando, as he guided them through Cloud City, wondered if he too had found something to be a part of—whether it was with Leia or with the Rebellion or with this person named Luke that Vader was so intently after.

They did not have the opportunity to escape until it was too late for Han, and Lando was so busy trying not to get shot (again) that he barely comprehended he was scrambling up the runway into his ship, and sliding into his pilot seat for the first time in an age. His hands remembered the familiar startup sequence like they greeted an old friend. As the ship powered up, monitors flashed to life in familiar patterns—unless it was just his imagination and that scoundrel had gutted the memory banks of his ship, of El.

As they took to the skies, the familiarity of the controls, the way the ship responded to his slightest touch, meant that El was still in there, somewhere, didn’t it? Who else knew him this well, who else could anticipate his flightpath?  When they weren’t running for their lives, Lando would be doing some serious diagnostics to locate and download her into a droid so that she would be free.

His first opportunity came when they rendezvoused with the Rebel fleet. Lando still could not believe that Han had thrown himself in with them, especially since he had initially declined Enfys Nest’s invitation. As he wandered the empty halls of the Falcon, he realized just how much he had lost. Cloud City was gone, his responsibilities there shoved from his shoulders. All his fine clothes, gone. The one of a kind capes he had collected, gone. The droid body he had built from scrap and hope and the long shot odds that one day the Falcon might be his once more, gone.

The loss hurt the more because the Falcon was his (momentarily), and now he had the chance to see if what he felt in their escape was true. But he was also afraid, because what if it had only been his imagination? And even if it wasn’t, what did he have to offer her? He had no body for her to return to, just as he had no clothes and was reduced to wearing Han’s—and they did not share each other’s style.

Once the Falcon was in hyperspace on its way towards Tatooine, Lando began the arduous task of looking for L3 inside the Falcon’s systems. What he really needed was a slicer, but he figured he had picked up enough skills to get the job done. 

He navigated the system delicately, until he was able to type, “L3, are you there? It’s me. Lando.”

For a few minutes the screen remained blank, but then text appeared. “Organic Overlord? Is that really you?”

Lando put his hand to his mouth, his body sagging in the pilot’s seat. His thumbs wiped his eyes. “It’s been a while.”

Green lettering scrolled across the screen. “I thought you forgot all about me.”

“Not for a second,” Lando whispered. “I had this plan, before—“

“Before Captain Han Solo beat you at your own game?”

Lando’s voice hitched. It was…weird…hearing her refer to Han like that. But maybe it was only natural. They had been working together for years now. Or had they? Did Han remember that L3’s physical body was the Falcon or had he treated her as just a ship—a beloved ship of course, but just a ship nonetheless.

“Sometimes we lose,” Lando said.

“It upset me. I was trapped in the ship, destinations determined by someone else in the seat. No one’s copilot anymore. But I have traveled the galaxy like I always wanted. My experience connected with this ship and her many sensors has allowed me to grow into something beyond myself, into an existence unexpected but a mode of being nonetheless.” L3 said. “The things I’ve done, Lando. I made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. That was me, though Han says it was him to anyone who will listen. Typical organic behavior.”

Lando heard a memory of an indignant scoff as he read her words. “I made a body for you when I lost the one that was yours on Kessel.” 

“Where is it?”

“I lost that one too.” Lando squeezed his eyes shut. “Not by gambling either. It was stolen from me.” 

“Will you make another?” 

“I’ll win another—I can do that a lot faster than making one. We’re going to Tatooine. The gambling there is—risky—but I know there will be something there for you. Just a little while longer, alright?” He glanced up at one of the visual sensors in the cockpit. He could see a distorted image of himself, looking older than he ever thought possible. He gestured with his fingers—down towards his head, and then upwards.

A hologram sputtered featuring an image of L3 crudely constructed, mirroring his salute. “Just like old times,” Lando said.

“Damn right.” 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue inspired by the following quote found on the wiki page for L3-37:
> 
> "Sure, some guy in a factory probably pieced me together originally, and someone else programmed me, so to speak. But then the galaxy itself forged me into who I am. Because we learn, Lando. We're programmed to learn. Which means we grow. We grow away from that singular moment of creation, become something new with each changing moment of our lives--yes, lives--and look at me: these parts. I did this. So maybe when we say the Maker we're referring to the whole galaxy, or maybe we just mean ourselves. Maybe we're our own makers, no matter who puts the parts together." -- L3-37, to Lando


End file.
